Basketball is one of the most popular sports games, gaining more and more admirers around the world.
Basketball is a sports team ball game, the aim hereof is sending the ball into a opponent’s basket preventing the other team from laying hold of the ball and throwing it to the basket.
Basketball is a part of Olympic Games program since 1936. James Neusmith was a guest there. Regular basketball male championships have been held from 1950, female championships - from 1953, whereas championships of Europe - from 1935.
In Europe, international club competitions are held, in particular, the ULEB Euroleague, the FIBA Cup, and the Challenge Cup.
The game has reached its maximum development in the USA where one of the most significant basketball championships was arranged - the championship of National Basketball Association (NBA).
In the winter of 1891, the students of the college Young Men’s Christian Association in Springfield, MA, were just dying of boredom at physical education lessons, forced to make endless gymnastic exercises, which in those times were considered almost the only way of exposing youth to sports. It was urgent to cut short the monotony of such education, breathing new life into them, in order to satisfy competitive needs of strong and healthy young people.
Way out from deadlock was found by a humble college instructor, James Neusmith by name. In December of the same year, he tied two baskets from peaches to handrails of the sports hall balcony, and having divided eighteen students to two teams, proposed them a game the goal hereof was throwing maximum number of balls to the opponents’ basket. Thus, the stage was set. Could doctor Neusmith imagine the bright future awaiting his brainchild?
The notion of the game originated in his school years when kids were playing an ancient game “duck-on-a-rock”. The goal of that game popular thenadays was to hit the top of a rock throwing a pebble.
The game called “basketball” only distantly resembled the spectacular show known under this name today. There was no dribbling; the players just exchanged the ball, staying on place, trying to throw the ball to the basket, at that only with both hands from below or from chest, and after a successful throw one of players had to lean a ladder against the wall and remove the ball from the basket. From today’s point of view, actions of teams should look inert and sluggish, yet doctor Neusmith’s aim was creating a collective game, capable of involving quite a number of players at the same time, and his invention was in line with this aim.